


The (very short) coffee shop AU we all deserve

by AssyEr



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffee Shops, Idiots in Love, M/M, Nastya saves the day, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, did i spent three paragraphs admiring Tim's hair?, i think, no beta we die like men, take a wild guess - Freeform, the other two have a crush on him, tim is a barista with beautiful hair, you know how it goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25930594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssyEr/pseuds/AssyEr
Summary: Jonny does definetely not have a crush on the barista at The Moon coffee shop, what are you talking about.Brian does.Tim has already memorized their order.
Relationships: Drumbot Brian/Jonny d'Ville/Gunpowder Tim
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	The (very short) coffee shop AU we all deserve

**Author's Note:**

> written for writer's month, prompt being Coffee Shop AU.
> 
> You will never guess who i tought would fit best as a barista.

There was a small coffee shop in the area near Jonny and Brian’s apartment called The Moon. It was a stupid name for a barely decent establishment, but the coffee was good and the prices acceptable, so they found themselves going there quite a lot, the main reason being Brian was an addict of cappuccino.

That month a new barista was hired, and he was, to describe him in one word, gorgeous.

Tim, as Jonny had seen he was called by his name plate, had long brown hair, but seeing it free was a rare occurrence. Most of the time he wore it tied in a low ponytail, something that seemed kind of last minute, but he still managed to stile. There were days he wore a bun, and it was equally outstanding, even if it made Jonny miss seeing it flow.

Jonny had taken the habit of trying to guess what hairstyle he had that day while waiting with his boyfriend on queue to order. One particular day, a hot one, so he had bet to himself he would be wearing a bun, Tim made a braid on his hair, and Jonny had one of the biggest gay crisis in his life since he had stumbled into Brian half-dressed playing the guitar on his living room after waking up. If he had thought the hair free was its best state, he had no ground to stand on then.

He had two small braids coming from his temples, and meeting at the back of his head. There, they curled around a small bun, to then fall freely with the rest of his hair. Other braids assumed here and there, and he noticed he had actually put on some beads there.

Jonny had been lucky that Tim had already memorized their order since the third time they crossed him, because there was no way he could have convinced his last brain cell to say something more complex than yes.

He wanted to watch him make those braids so much.

Once they sat on their table, Brian actually laughed at him. “Did you like his braids, Jonny?” he teased.

Jonny felt his cheek go red, and the only reason why he didn’t spat groceries at him was because he was still affected by The Gay. “I… Uh…”

His boyfriend chuckled. “God, you do have a crush on the man, don’t you?” he took a sip of his cappuccino.

“I do not!” he was quick to respond, perhaps too loudly. He winced at realizing that, and turned around to see if someone had heard them. No one payed any attention, and his gaze eventually found Tim, cleaning the counter with a rag, braids falling over his shoulder. No, bad idea. He went back to the man sitting in front of him, his _boyfriend_ , the one he… appreciated a very, very lot.

Who seemed to be watching him as if he was some stupid comedy on TV, the bastard. “Don’t try to deny it. I’ve noticed how you seem to complain way less when I drag you here. I fact, I’ve also seen you looking for him whenever we enter. You, Jonny d’Ville, have a crush on the barista,” he finished, reclining over the table with a dumb grin.

Jonny paled. He… had noticed? It didn’t mean anything, he had to assure him, fast. It was just some dumb thing, not real, not really. He was with Brian, and enjoyed every second he spent with him. He wasn’t about to just throw everything to the window for some stranger he saw for half a minute on weekends. What they had, it meant a lot to him.

He told him so, in quick words and an urgent tone. He looked at him with wide, focused eyes as he told him so, because he would in no way let him think that what they had was not what he wanted.

Brian smiled in that way he had, and took his hand across the table. “Hey, its fine, I know. And I’m happy with what we have too, for the record.” He squeezed his hand. “It’s just that I’ve been meaning to talk about this for a while now”

He did not take his hand away from his, tough he gulped at that last part. It had definitely not helped with his nerves. “I’m not doing anything with it, I swear. But we can change of coffee shop if you want. Or just come at a different time.” But they shouldn’t have to do it, he thought to himself, just because he was a fucking idiot who couldn’t keep his mind in check.

“No, no, it’s fine, Jonny, it was actually, the opposite? I mean, he _is_ hot,” he pointed out to his boyfriend surprise. Not at him considering Tim hot, that was just a fact, but at him being, well, fine with it. “What I wanted to say, I would be more than fine with it, if we wanted to, um, extend our relationship. To a third party.”

They had been much immersed in the conversation that Jonny actually jumped and let out a _fuck_ when the person they had been talking about just appeared at their side.

Tim was unbothered by that, just carry on with what they had come to do. “Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to ask if it would be fine with you if you moved to one of the tables with two chairs? A group just came in, and we can’t attach tables because of safety reasons” he told them.

Luckily for Jonny, whose pacemaker seemed to be working at his hardest, Brian took charge of the situation. “Yes, sure,” he told him. “We’ll go over there.”

“Thank you,” said the attractive men. “My boss told me to give you a cookie each for the bother, so I’ll come back with those”

They settled on the new place, and he brought them the mentioned goods. Brian’s cookie was shaped like a robot, while Jonny’s was a gun. This wasn’t surprising for a shop called The Moon, they supposed, and took a bite. They were really good.

“What I was…” Brian took a pause to shallow the mouthful of food in his mouth. “What I meant, I am perfectly happy with what we have, but if you feel positive on it, I wouldn’t oppose to poly,” he prompted the conversation back.

While thinking on how that made him feel ( _ugh_ ), Jonny drank from his coffee. “I… I would be all right with that, too, but… do you want to ask him, now?” he said while moving anxiously on his seat. It… it was something weird to bring on a stranger, wasn’t it?

To his credit, Brian actually blushed. “Oh. Um. I… don’t want to? I- It’s probably a lot to ask to a stranger, isn’t it? We should… get to know him? Hell, how does one does that?” He took his hands to his head, passing it over his head.

Jonny was in no better position than him. He had barely got himself a boyfriend for some sort of miracle, he had no way of how to get _another_ _one_. And a barista. At least he could go over some fanfictions, see if he could get some idea of what to do. It had worked for Valentine’s Day.

Not much changed from that day, except that now Jonny was welcomed and reciprocated when babbling about the barista. And he also got himself a new obsession with braids.

He had watched some tutorial on the internet, and it said that he technically _had_ enough hair for a short one, but they always dismantled when he let go of them. Brian had found him one time in the bathroom, and had actually managed to make him something small that ran through his side, but nothing even near to what he wanted for himself. He googled that day how much time hair needed to grow.

But he had a boyfriend with a long hair, and he took advantage of it. While Brian played with his guitar, or banjo, or whatever he had on the moment, Jonny would sit behind him and take his hair hostage for an hour or so, trying to replicate the things he saw on his cellphone. He managed to make the simplest version, and a halo braid, and was now trying to master the fishtail one. Brian didn’t mind, as long as he didn’t tangle anything too bad. The feeling of hands on his hair was quite nice.

So, no big changes, until one Saturday.

Brian was waiting for his boyfriend on their usual place on the coffee shop, both of his orders already on the table, when he saw him enter with a savage expression, an excited grin on his face. He felt queasy all the sudden.

“Jonny…” he said as a hello, and then huffed when he landed on the chair next to him, hitting his side.

“Look. At this.” He told him, shoving his phone onto his face.

Brian grabbed it from his hand, trying to see what he meant. It was opened on a discord chat, with the question, from Jonny he could tell, “ _whats y’all opinion on poly??? asking 4 a uni prjct._ ” He left it on the table, to look back at him. “I suppose there’s a reason why you’re showing me this”

Jonny was beaming with happiness. “Okay, do you remember how we tried to stalk him the other night, but couldn’t find anything?” he asked him, pointing at Tim on the counter.

He bit his lip. “It wasn’t _stalking_.”

They had searched for him on Instagram, twitter, and even Facebook, but haven’t found much. He seemed to be a more private man, and only shared other publications about games and guitars and steampunk stuff. Nothing fun, on Jonny’s words.

“Yes it was, just listen,” Jonny didn’t have time to loose on banal details. “He liked some picture about a discord group of Call of Duty, and I managed to get invited,” he told him.

“You what? You don’t know how to play that game” he affirmed, fully right.

“That doesn’t matter. The point is that I am on the same discord that him, so a couple days ago I asked the group if they wanted to play a game between those who lived in this city. I reduced the users to thirty possible Tim’s like that,” he took a drink from his coffee before continuing. “After that, I proposed the game be on Saturday next week at ten…”

“When you know he won’t be able to because he has a shift” Brian said, astonished by his boyfriend’s wit.

“Exactly. So I now know that he goes by _green_light89,_ and when he answers we can now if he would be interested or not” he finished smudgy, very proud of his plan.

“You just asked that out of the blue?” he took the phone back again, checking the message again.

Jonny seemed less sure, now. “I, yes? You think it was too much?” he was doubting his actions, inspecting Brian face for sign of deception.

Brian looked up, realizing that he had managed to upset him. “It’s not what I would have done,” he admitted, “but it was very clever. I wouldn’t have been able to find him like that,” he complimented him truthfully.

He blushed, and took back his phone. “Whatever,” he decidedly did not look at him. “We’ll just have to wait, then. He is not very active, so it could take a while”

On Sunday they found themselves again in the coffee shop in an unexpected trip to the shopping area near the place. Nastya and Aurora needed new clothes, and had invited Brian to come along, and between the three forced Jonny to come with them.

At the moment, both men were in The Moon. They had finished earlier than the girls, and Brian actually managed to convince Jonny of getting a new pair of pants, as his old ones seemed to be about to fall away from use. There were the usual beverages on the table, plus Aurora’s tea and Nastya’s coffee that they asked them to get them.

Jonny was sitting on Brian’s lap, because the chair next to him was being used to hold their bags, and he did whatever the fuck he wanted. Resting on his chest, he took his phone to check on her sister.

What he found instead made Brian almost throw his cup to the ground from the urgency on which he called him. “Brian! He answered!” he told him, eyes glued to the screen. “Oh…”

“What? Who?” he asked, trying to see what he meant. Jonny showed him his phone.

Ah. Tim, on discord. “ _Ew, no_ ” the message read.

“Ah” Brian said after a moment.

It was… disappointing was one way of saying it.

“He didn’t have to be an arse about it! He could have just said no, like a decent person” Jonny mumbled to him, now watching angrily at the barista. Brian put his arms around him.

“Yeah, he didn’t.” that was it, he didn’t have much else to say about it. “It was fine while it lasted, tough,” he offered.

They sat in silence for a while, thinking. He hadn’t seem like a dick when they talked to him (they had talked! They had held like, two or three conversations outside what was strictly client-employee necessary), they had let the hope build. To have it crushed like that. It sucked.

A while later Nastya and her girlfriend came in, spotting them instantly.

A small chat arouse, with them telling the other two what they had been up to, about their week. Nastya however noticed something was wrong about Jonny. “The fuck is wrong with you today?” she asked.

He tried to evade the question, only to have Brian narrate their whole adventure, no detail left aside. Jonny hit him with his elbow.

His sister just… stared at them. With a done expression. She stared and said nothing, probably trying to see if that had actually happened, if they weren’t playing a joke on them, or if they really were that much of a pair of idiots. When she decided the second was the correct answer, she got up from her seat, walking away from them.

“Where’re you going?” asked Brian, confused.

Jonny, that knew her for so many years, did not understand what she was trying to do, but was certain that whatever it was would not end well for him. He got up from Brian like a bolt, only to be stopped by a hand grabbing his arm.

Aurora. That stupid traitor. She smiled at him.

He looked again at where Nastya was, and realized that it was now too late to stop her from doing what she wanted, unless he was up for making a scene in front of his no-longer crush. Which he was not. He sat back again, adverting his face from where she was.

“What is she doing?” he asked the rest, who did not felt too ashamed to look, or at least not yet.

“She’s talking to Tim…” Brian said in a low, confused voice. Then, he too looked at the very interesting piece of table Jonny was so focused on. “Oh god. Oh god, she pointed at us.” He told him.

“She what?” he half whispered, half screamed, and dared to look at the direction the barista should be in.

Tim was there, indeed, with his beautiful hair tied in a messy bun. He was talking with Nastya, and looking at them both and _oh no, they locked eyes_.

Jonny quickly moved his back to where they were. “I’m going to kill her,” he said, and Aurora laughed.

He was going to kill both of them, and then himself.

Nastya sat back with them. “He says he is interested,” she told them, and took a sip of her coffee.

“What?” asked Brian, who was now holding Jonny with both of his arms to prevent him from committing murder, even though the idea of letting him free was very tempting.

She clarified what she meant. “I asked, and he said that he would be interesting in dating,” she said, and then added, “The two of you, in case it wasn’t clear enough”

That made Jonny calm a little. “Really?” he held a little bit of hope.

Nastya nodded, and then all hearts stopped as Tim appeared next to the table. “For you,” he said, leaving in front of Jonny and Brian two papers bags that they knew had cookies. With them, there was a napkin, with a phone number written in black ink. He was gone before they had the chance to react.

The cookies were shaped like a moon and an explosion, and the phone number was real. The barista winked at them form behind the counter when Jonny looked in awe at him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Jonny and Brian might think they have braincells, but Nastya had stolen them all when they werent looking.
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Kudos and Comments feel like... do you know when one used to stay up late, and just got home after a long, cold day, and you open the fridge and there. Pizza. your favourite pizza, that you tought you've eaten all and so dared not to have hope, but its there and there's plenty. Like that.
> 
> EDIT: I should say now, please dont ask people out while they be working, its uncomfortable and ugly and no one deserves that, this is fanfiction


End file.
